Setting the right targets

                      (By Lisa Sarah John, Courtesy Bangalore Times, Sep 03, 2007)


There are advertisements everywhere about exciting weight loss programmes and the 20-30 kgs that someone lost. At every social gathering people discuss new diet plans that are certain to make you lose loads of fat.
It’s only when you actually start dieting that you realise your dream of losing 20-30 kgs is quite distant and the time involved seems so great that you tend to give up in a week or two.
The most important step is to set a realistic target. Those who want to lose 15-20 kgs must first work at 10 kgs, not more. The scientific and medically safe time period to lose 10 kgs is three months or 90 days at a rate of approximately 3 kgs in a month.
When you feel you can handle that with food restrictions in three months, then you can do full justice to the time period. Try not to break the diet and you may see encouraging results because you are very focused and committed to that 90-day period. After this, if you still want to lose another 5-10 kgs you can go on with confidence and ease. I know a 21-year-old girl who stuck to a programme for 10 months and lost 30 kgs and has maintained it for the last three years. This type of reasonable and steady weight loss is the safest as it does not return as soon as you start indulging a little. However, there are some rules one must understand:

Every time you check your weight and see a loss, it is not an excuse to indulge in something, which adds fat back to your body. Also, when people compliment you on your weight loss, it should motivate you to alter your clothes or treat yourself to some new clothes, cosmetics, jewellery, etc., but not more rich food.

Any diet promising a loss of 10 kgs in 20 days or one month should be avoided. In one month the human body can lose about 3-4 kgs of fat. Beyond this, the remaining six kgs will consist of muscle and water from the body. When you lose muscle tissue, your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) goes down. This results in rapid weight gain in the future. Unfortunately, when you gain that weight it does not come back as fat plus muscle plus water but as 10 kg of fat alone.
Those who weigh over 100-120 kgs may lose upto 5 kgs fat per month because they have so much fat to lose, whereas a person who is 70 to 80 kgs could lose about 3-4 kgs per month. On the other hand, a person who is 60 kgs and wanting to reduce to 55 kgs may lose only 1-2 kgs per month as they have only a small amount of fat to be lost. No two people would have the same weight loss, and no two ideal weights could be the same. The most important lesson to learn is not to compare and compete with someone else but to work on your body by your own standards and do it in a healthy way.

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